After

[3]

Nick looked over at Cheshire, who was hunched over the desk fiddling with a small metal box. The boy looked up.
"Hey Riley, can you pass the wrench?"
He pointed at a the tool hanging on the wall beside Riley.

"No." He answered coldly.

Cheshire looked from Riley, to the wrench. "Oh." He paused. "Okay then." He grinned, and began fishing around in his bag of parts.

After Nick had brought his tent inside, the teenager had basically taken over the room. Spare parts and pieces of broken technology littered the floor, and the small living space had been pushed into the corner. Nick looked back over when Cheshire let out a short, excited laugh. In front of him on the desk, sat a robot so small it could sit in the palm of his hand. It's dome shaped head had a panel missing from the back, and a small dial its cuboid chest showed what appeared to be power level. Arms made of hydronic piping gently brushed against the desk, and a camera lens was in the place of a singular eye.

Nick raised an eyebrow. "It looks cool kid, but without an A.I. chip it's not gonna do-"

"You mean like this one?" Cheshire held up a small microchip, which had sand and dust around the edges. He blew on it, and inserted it into the open panel on the robot.

The camera shutter opened, and it looked up at Cheshire. "Father?" Crackled a small speaker.

Cheshire laughed, beaming at the robot and clapping his hands. "Yes! It works!"

The robot lifted its hands and looked down at its claw like hands. "Who am I?"

Cheshire scratched his head. "Huh." He paused. "Well, I guess I'll call you Wrench."

"What is my purpose, father?" Wrench asked, looking back up at the teenager.

He shrugged. "Well, to go and get me that wrench." Cheshire pointed at the tool on the other wall.

"Is that all, father?" Wrench asked.

"For now? Pretty much!" Cheshire grinned. "Oh, and call me Cheshire. Father sounds to formal."
Wrench nodded slowly, before plodding off the table with his short stubby legs.

"You made a robot because you were too lazy to get up and get a tool?" Nick asked, gawking at the boy. He simply shrugged.

"Well, yeah. It was all the way over there. And I'm over here. And you guys had the pieces so I just thought, Hey, why not?"
Nick sat back in his chair, rubbing his forehead as Wrench came scrambling back to the desk with the tool.
"Thanks man." Cheshire grinned, lifting the robot up and letting it sit on the desk.

Riley looked out the large viewing window above the drivers cabin.
"There's a storm coming." He said to Nick.

His brother stood up. "As in a storm, or a Nuclear Storm?"

"Nuclear." Riley grumbled. He grabbed the radio from the wall in front of him. "Jake?"

It took a moment for the driver to respond. "Roger."

"Pull in at the next town." Riley said. "We need to stock up on supplies, especially with two more mouths to feed. We might not be able to leave the truck for weeks once this storm hits."

Jakes response was almost immediate. "Got you, chief. Pulling in at the next town."

After a while, the truck slowed to a stop. Nick took a key card from his belt, and made his way through the rooms towards the back door. He tapped Cheshire on the shoulder.
"You wanna come into town kid?"